Twinkie Facts

18 Interesting Twinkie Facts

5) Twinkies were originally filled with banana cream, hence the coloring and shape. We can thank WWII for the more delicious innards of the Twinkie. During WWII, bananas became scarce, so they switched to vanilla cream. After the war was over and bananas were more readily available, they didn’t switch back because people liked the vanilla cream better.

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8) Among those artificial ingredients in Twinkies is cellulose gum, which gives Twinkie cream its smooth feel. Another place you can find this cellulose gum is in rocket fuel.

9) That’s not the only fuel based ingredient in a Twinkie. The chemicals that make up the artificial butter flavor are themselves derived from petroleum.

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15) The Twinkies eaten in Zombieland were not real Twinkies. Being a vegan and raw-foodist, Woody Harrelson would not eat real Twinkies. Rather, the “Twinkies” he was shown eating were made from cornmeal and were vegan-safe.

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18) Nutritionist Mark Haub once went on a “Twinkie Diet” in order to see if one could eat almost nothing but junk food and still lose weight (testing his theory that weight loss is primarily tied to calorie intake, rather than what foods you eat). He stuck to an 1,800 calorie per day diet of mostly Twinkies, Donuts, Doritos, Oreos, and sugary cereals (though did drink a protein shake and took a multivitamin). In the end, his body mass index dropped from 28.8 to 24.9 and he lost 27 pounds in the 2 months he stuck to the diet, dropping from 201 pounds to 174 pounds. What surprised him, as he’d expected the weight loss from his theory, was that his “bad” cholesterol levels dropped 20% over his normal healthy diet and his “good” cholesterol levels increased by 20%. He even dropped 39% on his “bad” fat levels, such as triglycerides.